Since the beginning of RU-vid I've had several cases where I'd find a relatively unknown content creator and think "wow, this guy only has 1k subs? One day he'll have hundreds of thousands." I was almost always right. I'm writing this comment to remind myself in a couple years I found you back when you had 550 subs and I was the 551st. Great content, awesome narration skills and if you're doing it all from your head, no script, without bloopers - you're already better than most high rollers.
Wow, I really appreciate your support and your confidence! For now I'm just enjoying making content that I hope the community will find helpful, interesting or entertaining. Getting feedback like yours is always great :)
You know, the ammo buy screen shows you which of your ships can make use of the selected ammo. No need to look up and remember all the different weapons in your fleet.
Starting out with 3 lightnings seems like really dubious advice. The lightning's fuel range very often does not cover the distance between neighbouring cities. That means you will have to attach the sevastopol to your lightning group to reach most cities. This consequently nullifies the lightning's speed and is also fuel inefficient because the sevastopol itself has a really bad distance/fuel performance. Also, the lightning is outgunned very early on, as soon as you start to fight garrisons with up to 3 ships. One bad dodge and you risk losing a lightning. In general, this type of loadout completely misses the point of Highfleet gameplay. You are incentivized to have several independent fleets, which use fast fighters, tankers and small radar ships to visit as many cities as possible, sniff out and hunt down trade convoys. The sevastopol acts as a mobile base which slowly pushes forward and defends against strike groups while your fighter fleets extend out from it like a spiderweb. It's all about map control.
My feeling is that that's a bit much lightning spam. I like bringing 2, but I feel that after that, their utility drops off dramatically. My feeling is that there is a huge benefit to bringing a single ship to a fight, as it reduces morale loss dramatically, but a lightning, with it's no flares, no armor strategy, can be a bit risky against moderate to hard targets when using the lightning. The difference between it and an actual combat ship, like the gladiator, is night and day. The gladiator has reliable anti missile, can largely ignore 37mm fire, but also, just has twice the firepower (double the guns) which make it just even the odds much faster in tough fights. Also, lightnings feel like they need extensive refit, as you have to build out the hull quite a bit to fit an amount of guns on them to match their engines. In contrast, the gladiator can dodge most shots fairly easily IF you recognize that your main engines are fixed in place, so you should try to burn upwards to dodge fire, not sideways (you get about 50% bonus thrust). If you are trying to burn laterally, maybe you need the lightning's low weight, but one screw up against large enemy fleets and you are now losing the battle, and if you retreat early, the gladiator can easily mount 5 130mm cannons with minimal refit. That is VASTLY better dakka than dual 100mm. You can also remove the missiles for free and instantly, which is clearly the play, and then you have free missiles for later. Coming with unneeded missiles is barely even a downside, given it is free and instant to remove them and they don't seem to slow down ships when they are in the "hold". I will note, the skylark is CRAZY powerful. It solves the range problems of your strike groups completely, it's cheap enough you don't care if you are parked in base recovering morale because it engaged in "combat", and it's the CLEAR choice to mount your search radar on. Having forward search radar is incredibly powerful, as is a second source of radar for triangulation of targets in combo with the Svestapol, and putting it on a dedicated noncombat ship is very useful as that ship has no need of fire control radar, and search radar is super fragile and super expensive on air superiority boats, and also just a huge power drain. Having your only search radar on a 95km/hr ship seems silly, but it's a 10k module, meaning it's worth having a nearly dedicated ship to carry it... enter the skylark tanker. You can also use it to scan the ground as you travel, as it's super fast and has huge fuel reserves and your fleet doesn't have to shut down while it refuels. BECAUSE it's so fast, it burns fuel at over half the rate of the svestapol (per hour, not per kilometer, 80,000 tons vs 156000 tons per hour), so it basically eliminates having to refuel with the svestapol, which takes forever. These guys just find targets at an incredible speed, with IR AND search radar at 530km/hr speed, and having mobile radar makes it much easier to avoid strike groups, because the svestapol can spend most of it's time on the move, and it's pretty hard to pin down a ship that can move it's entire radar signature range in a hour. It seems like a major oversight that the designers didn't recognize this and almost all of the prebuilts are missile cruisers, rather than have a couple more utility ships (or even dedicated gunships without missiles, as they are tough to replace and make all the gunships APPEAR more fragile than they actually are, as even armored ships like the gladiator for some reason has missiles strapped directly outside it's main armor plates, when it could have them mounted facing downwards next to he landing struts). I do agree, though, the missiles make no sense in the early game, and should be immediately stripped off the gladiator.
Yeah definitely agree, thanks for the comment! The stock lightnings work well initially but won't hold up later in the game. Some of the best builds do require creating your own ships or customizing existing ships to use at the start of the campaign, although I think for beginners it's probably best to play with the existing builds first and start customizing once it becomes clear what the benefits of different upgrades are.
@@ChucksIndieGalaxy I am not sure yet. the thing is, the game seems to really punish you for major refits. It really seems to me like the game MIGHT charge you the purchase price of any module to install. That means that making a custom ship with a 10k radar system and then having 2 copies of it is AT LEAST 20k of your starting budget. That's a lot of money, though I haven't found the game very hard so far. (though I am on normal difficulty). Also, the refit system is just annoying with repair. Like for example, the first thing I would do with any lightning while refueling is to move the escape pods to the underside pointing downwards, to free up the top side so that I can later build up the upper structure to support needed modules like guns/ammo/crew . but.... if you do this, you have to make an entirely new class just for this trivial mod, or every time you repair, it tries to move the escape pods back to the original configuration. It treats the full health, user placed pods as an error to be repaired. But then, every time you repair, no matter how trivial, it prompts you as to which variant you want to repair as, and you must pick the new ship class every time you enter a town to refuel, assuming you just repair by default. But if you had just built a custom ship that made some sense, and just used that, there is none of that. My custom skylark is just fine, all the time. It doesn't try to strip off my radar to reinstall a ELINT dome, it doesn't ask me what ship I am trying to repair, it just figures it out.
@@timmietimmins3780 I think double charging to install modules is just a bug. it says it costs the full price of a thing to take it out of your hold and mount it, but it never actually takes that money out of my funds as far as I've seen
Lightning is the best ship, for the first 2 thirds of the game. It is not able to handle strike groups and cruisers. BUT. It makes you able to afford to fight those. Especially if you replace the engines for the more efficient ones. You do lose noticeable thrust, but it becomes the cheapest fighting ship to operate.
You should refit the Sevastopol, removing everything that has got anything to do with combat like it's Squall cannon, leaving only SHORAD and detection systems. The Sevastopol is too valuable to enter combat, not only you have lots of sensitive equipment like ELINT, RADAR, Jammers, and IRST that are easy to destroy and expensive to repair, but also if the Bridge goes down, the game ends instantly. So it makes more sense to make the Sevastopol cheaper to move by removing guns and armor, and putting on extra engines. You should still leave some SPRINTS and 37mm for defense against missiles and airstrikes, and obviously the cruise missiles for strategic play. Putting RADAR on Skylark is a great idea early to mid game, but later on you might want to replace radar or supplement it with IRST and ELINT, maybe a Jammer. Since turning on your RADAR late game is tantamount to getting bombarded by airstrikes and cruise missiles, RADAR is more of a last resort if you are sure you're detected.
15:30 You know exactly where the Sparrowhawk trade ship is going to be with the info you had. It had a speed of 107 and you knew the route. So, all you had to do with take the speed of your Lightning, around 700 if memory serves and use the ruler to drop it where you guess the trade ship will be. That'll tell you the time to arrival. Now just multiply that time by the speed of the trade ship, 107 and you know where it'll be when your Lightning arrives. That's it, you set an interception plot. The other thing, if you want to skip the whole avoiding with Lightnings - you need skill for that and you're bound to make a mistake - you can make a ship with say 10-15 100mm guns and armour which is 3 thick. Make the 2nd and 3rd layer of armour spaced one apart to save weights and spread the damage. Make the thrust to weight around 1.2 and don't add legs. It'll beat up to 2-3 enemy fleets so you can take your time repairing it without landing and just destroy the fleets that attack. Give it a large fuel tank.
wow! im glad i watched this, i had no idea the supply depot had more than just fuel. I would always just fuel up and leave. Gettin access to different ammo types is super helpful!
Thanks for the good advice. If I may, I’d like to add some of my “tips” Tip #1 Do not get detected. For the love of god, do not get detected. Every strike fleet on the map will begin beelining towards you. There will be no escape. Tip #2 If you do get detected, make sure you have enough fuel to go at least two cities away. Otherwise you’ll be stuck fighting said approaching strike groups for days.
Note that there's some inconsistent audio volume on my mic due to some technical issues I was facing in recording this video, I'll try to have this fixed for the next one. Let me know what you think of Highfleet, I've been having a lot of fun with it lately and I'm curious to know what everyone thinks of the game.
I've completed this game several times and I strongly disagree with this guy's ship selection. Gladiator is a beast that can solo entire strike groups especially the early ones. I strongly recommend you taking both lightning and a gladiator. Also take a skylark or two to have atleast one independent group that will scout ahead your main fleet. Loosing them to any mistake won't hurt you much. Also I would consider taking a Longbow. Once you get a grip on how planes work, carriers become essential for your fleet. Planes outrange cruise missiles by 500 km which gives you a huge advantage not to mention that they can spot enemy fleets and intercept cruise missiles.
Great advice! I agree, especially with some of the updates this game has seen the ship selection I did for this video won't work long term. You need at least 2 or 3 ships similar to the skylark to extend range and having a carrier is definitely a huge advantage. I do still find that the lightning is an amazing ship to have early game but since enemy ships will sometimes counter with proximity fuse ammunition that can be devastating if all you have are lightning ships.
There are also different types of ships, like Anti Air, Tankers, and Aircraft carriers. I started my first playthrough with no AA or Tankers and I was left catching transports with the capital SHIP
Started the game... wow, it goes pretty well so far... okay this is very difficult... ok Im stuck. Watches video. ...Okay, every single decision I have made was the worst possible one available.
I'm not really convinced by the battle system. It doesn't "sell" me on its gameplay the feeling that I'm controlling a fleet. I think with a combat system like in HW: Deserts of Kharak or Wargame: Red Dragon it could convey this immersion much better than with one that reminds of Luftrausers. That being said, I find the game absolutely fascinating.
True, only being able to control one ship at a time hinders that fleet vibe. I always reckoned being able to have another 1-3 ships piloted by friends with controllers would seriously help that.
I went gladiator longbow sevastopol. You can invade any town on normal up to the 3rd save np with the gladiator if its in decent shape and your a good pilot. Learn to use the carrier. 350kg bombs on the planes will kill the roaming siege ships
Thanks, seems like a really complex game to get your arms around. General mechanics are ok but the detail of the ships, their abilities etc melts my brain a bit.
Good lord, I have a cipher note with 3 sets of numbers and I did nothing with !!! >_< I also didn't know that you can assign different ammo types before a fight, I bought tons of exotic ammo and never used any!!!! >_< I try not to watch you tube videos to figure out stuff on my own but your video answered so many frustrating mechanics I got stuck on. Fuze ammo is OP tho!! :D So yeah, thanks a bunch!!!
I builded my own ship to begin my campaign with. It has 4x 100mm turrets & 4x gatling guns. Armored where needed (fuelcells) but due to 8x engines its fast & agile. Downside it costs a lot (56k) and it drinks a lot of fuel but I win every fight. But if those damm patrolling fleets find you. Damm run like hell cause those incoming missiles are terrifying.
Nice, sounds like a good strategy! The agility really helps to avoid taking hits. Yes those strike fleets can be lethal, I also avoid them at all costs.
Soften Strikegroups up with T7-Airplanes. Send them in multiples of 3 and give them 122 mm Rockets or 250 kg Bombs. Planes can surprise enemy Fleets und catch them landed on the ground, that means their Anti Air will be delayed. Attacking at Night helps with that, too.
Okay so I went and started a new run and my lightning just kept spiralling out of control like crazy. It would stay upright for anything. Did I activate some sort of self balancing button or something? I ended up removing the fixed thrusters and making it bigger.. i dunno wtf happened
I cant play Highfleet yet because shitty pc but was wondering. Doesaircraft carrier flagship with missiles sounds like a good idea? I mean other ships are for fighting and intercepting but can always use additional planes to damage enemy before striking
My big tip for the starting ships is make independent strike groups of 2x Lightning and 1x Skylark and send them out in opposite directions. You dont need the flagship - it's slow, uses a lot of fuel, is very expensive to repair - dont be afraid to skip it and take other stuff. Make a decision early on whether you want to fight using the flagship, and if like me you'd prefer not to strip the armour, large calibre weapons, and excess ammo components to speed it up. Make sure it still has Sprints for AA defence and a bunch of 37mm for cruise missiles. You will want a carrier of some sort for scouting and softening up fleets, and I like modifying the flagship to turn it into a giant carrier.
Thank you very much for the advice, I have already learned a little better about the game. What is difficult for me is the assembly or improvement of the ships, I don't know where to place the pieces correctly so that it has good armor or firepower, on reddit I have seen ships that amaze me with their design but I don't know how to download them. implement them in my game. With a friend we used money tricks to buy all the pieces but we didn't know how to create a good ship.
12:40 - the tutorial doesn't mention that at all also, I had no idea that the trader had ammo inventory (and I made it more than halfway to Khiva on my first run)...
Thanks for this video! I am new to this game and I think I was over complicating the early game by worrying about missiles and aircraft etc. I’m going to try a fleet of lightnings on my next campaign!
Youre really cool speaker (and the most important - understandable), Chuck, and that video was significantly improve my HighFleet mechanics knowlege and saved a lot amount of time. I hope you will grove up with high speed, and if you are reading this - good luck. Во славу империи Романи, тархан!
excellent video...exactly speaking to the things I struggled with even after watching multiple guides...specifically struggled with fuel and how to get money to buy more fuel. Your accent sound South African... Even more reason to subscribe ;-)
I just bought this game and am looking forward to playing it. But this review (as well done as it is) makes me rethink my purchase. I purchased this game to have the cool variations of ships to use each with it strengths and weaknesses. But you make it seem like one ship type can do just fine. I am talking out of ignorance right now until I get to play, but I really hope it isn't true that there is some singular strategy that you can use to win the game.
I have good news for you then, I don't think just using one ship is the optimal strategy. This was more intended as an easy way for new players to get into the game, and it works well early on. However, in my experience this ship can get outmatched later into the game. Lots of different strategies work, and it's definitely worth experimenting.
Gotta say I prefer the navarin but refit with the more powerful engines and 100mm guns. Can take more hits then the lightning but is still manoeuvrable enough
This game is making me feel extremely stupid. What tends to happen is I take over a few cities but then I come to another one and the group defending it are simply too powerful. I can't DO anything against them. What the hell am I meant to do when I'm one small ship at a time and the enemy is 3 or 4 of them blasting seemingly countless missiles at me? If I try to shoot bigger guns at longer ranges I simply miss all the time. I don't have enough missiles for this kind of thing.
The learning curve is steep and the game can be very punishing. I'll probably need to revisit this at some point to cover some additional longer term strategies for mid to late game.
@@ChucksIndieGalaxy Well, I found one solution... Downloading custom ships. The Kodiak singlehandedly took out three strike groups, four enemy bases, and Khiva.
@@ChucksIndieGalaxy I have a probably dumb question. What does Crew actually do? I believe at least one of the giant ships I downloaded has about 30% crew by default.
After that last fight, there was a warning of riot. Morale was 7 ? Too long in combat then? Also, what early and midgame improvements would be best for the lightning?
I'm trying to start this game, but having some trouble. Do I really have to build and design my own ships? Because I have no clue what piece is what and where
You don't really need to design your own ships, but it can offer some advantages. It's a roguelite so getting your fleet destroyed, restarting and trying different approaches is all part of it. Start with the stock ships and once you've played for several hours and you start getting an idea of what each part does, you can restart by modifying existing designs to create different variants that suits your playstyle. When you use the designer to do this (outside the main career), you can also test designs and get more practice is combat.
You can't, all ships enter with fuel 99. Using afterburners drains fuel like crazy, which is why lightnings run out quickly. One reason to bring several of them into a battle, so you can retreat when out of fuel and bring in the next one
@@TheAtheist92 That is Percent. The actual fuel is based on tanks and as you say burner usage. Its an actual tactic to just fly circles around ships until they run out of fuel.
@@fortusvictus8297 Indeed, but meteors and lightnings run out of fuel way faster than bigger ships like say the archangel, despite the lighter ships having a far greater strategic cruise range = fuel/weight ratio. Which I suppose is because in battle, I use the afterburner like crazy with the lighter ships
Once the strike fleet gets too close to you it's very difficult to evade it, it's best to try and avoid encounters with strike fleets altogether. A few things you can do: - Avoid staying in one place for too long - When you take over the intel stations, the most expensive intel (costs 3 points) will show you where the strike fleet is so that you can avoid it - Your ship will pick up big armed fleets on radar. Once you detect them, it's best to switch off your own radar because that'll give away your fleet's position
some extra tips from some who constantly gets game ended by SG's: Use the notation tools (pencil) to write down fleet names and put it on the city their at or moving too EL INT or ELectronic INTelligence is your best friend; when placed correctly it has a range of about 2000km, ELINT detects damn near everything from strike groups to aircraft carriers or missile carriers. ElINT will show you the direction and range has shown by the degrees from north and the range shown by the five ticks (each ticks is 1/5 the ELINT range) with 1 being far and 5 being on top of you as said by galaxy radar is a like looking through a window, however you can still use radar with sector search (this scans a 30 degree angle and will only give you away to things in that direction) you can also use a jammer to scramble enemy radar to try and sneak past them most importantly use the thermal imager in the bottom left, when in range ships will produce a spike in the circle using the bearings knob you can adjust it to the spike and see a line come down on the little screen this is where the ships you detect are and you can see which way they are moving on it (note: the bigger the spike the closer they are) if all else fails use cruse missiles to deter them for a bit or soften them up before contact, and when you can here the bells tolling nuke the shit outta them.
It's a pity that you didn't provide practically any valuable information beyond the basics. Fortunately, the basic information does not require you to know the game.
